How bitcoin supply can be more than 21 million

[Jawhead999]

This is why I always thought leverage trading is a scam since you're not actually trade with the real coin, but you're trading with the underlying asset created by the exchange. Leverage trading can trick anyone with false understanding like this one, not to mention there's a rules you need to understand and each exchange differ from the other. If you want to get a real experience to trade Bitcoin, you can use P2P platform e.g. localcryptos, hodl hodl.

[o_e_l_e_o]

I don't know. If Protocols for Segwit, Taproot can reach to consensus, why a protocol to change its total supply can not be submitted and voted?

It can be submitted, sure, but it will be widely rejected by the community. Why would every node and every miner agree to change which would devalue current coins and therefore make them all lose money? Someone can even create a fork which increases the block reward or slows down halvings or whatever in order to breach the 21 million coin limit, but no one will use it.

Irrecoverable Bitcoins that were sadly lost due to lost private keys? Will it be circulating again?

Many will eventually be recovered when the ECDLP is eventually broken (presumably) by quantum computers. But many will remain lost forever.

My question is will there be some sort of protocol to extract or mine more coins to maintain a circulating supply of exactly 21 million BTC? Maybe every 50-100 years a dormant coin will be unlocked for mining by miners?

You are talking about a tail emission, in order to maintain the circulating supply at close to 21 million. If you are interested, there was a long discussion about this on the mailing list recently (https://lists.linuxfoundation.org/pipermail/bitcoin-dev/2022-July/020665.html), and also on the forum (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5405755.0).

[justdimin]

This is why I always thought leverage trading is a scam since you're not actually trade with the real coin, but you're trading with the underlying asset created by the exchange. Leverage trading can trick anyone with false understanding like this one, not to mention there's a rules you need to understand and each exchange differ from the other. If you want to get a real experience to trade Bitcoin, you can use P2P platform e.g. localcryptos, hodl hodl.

I think this was already explained by some exchanges (if not all) before they implement such feature. This can be included in one of the rules or mechanics on how this game worked, so I wouldn't call it a scam. It only becomes a scam if the exchange itself is also a scam.

But, if it's true that rules for leverage trading differs from one exchange to the other then this might be (one of) the reason on why many traders are losing because they didn't bother checking the rules thinking all of them are still the same. Other than p2p, spot trading will also allows you to experience on what is like to trade a real crypto plus they are also less risky than leverage trading.

[rat03gopoh]

As much as I know, exchanges only provide futures trade with stablecoins as the main pair. With more specific, the contract between traders and brokers is just an agreement to sell or buy a coin that underlies the stablecoin (according to the order details) with an equivalent amount. So in this case it isn't an "increasing" bitcoin supply, but stablecoins.

[arhipova]

It is all fun and games till someone demand his bitcoins and withdraw them. Leverage, fractional reserve banking, investing with the customer funds… these all work fine till they don’t. Gox was probably the first and ftx won’t be the last example. On paper, These exchanges can create bitcoin out of nothing but it never ends well. The other example is tether. Everybody knows that’s not going to end well too.

What do you have to say about the proof of reserves being posted by exchanges ? How fake or trusted are they ?

[o_e_l_e_o]

What do you have to say about the proof of reserves being posted by exchanges ? How fake or trusted are they ?

They prove nothing for two main reasons.

First of all, you have no idea if the proof of reserves is accurate. Even with the exchanges which are trying to do it with Merkle trees, there is absolutely nothing stopping them from missing out some accounts or including fake accounts within those Merkle trees. Some exchanges have already been caught doing exactly that: https://news.yahoo.com/ftx-execs-hid-8-billion-173336895.html

Secondly, even if you assume the proof of reserves is completely honest and accurate, without proof of liabilities it means absolutely nothing. Let's say Binance can prove they are holding 100,000 BTC in reserve. So what? Obviously Binance own some bitcoin. What we don't know is how much bitcoin they are supposed to have in reserve. What is the total outstanding balance of every Binance user account? If they owe their users 200,000 BTC and only have 100,000 BTC in reserve, then they are massively insolvent, despite their proof of reserves.